Covering
by Jeretarius
Summary: For Evil Mina's Alphabet challenge Sometimes you just feel trapped even in your own skin.


Celia hated the skin she, though she wasn't the proper term after all demons don't have a gender, but she hated the skin she was in. The skin wasn't exactly hers either, but the skin of the form she was forced into by her master, Zalera.

She looked at herself in the mirror and ran her fingers over the vile covering she wore. A covering that poisoned her very essence. Just the feel of her smooth, velvety skin made her nauseous. The new façade soft curves and beautiful features almost made it intolerable to look at. She swallowed forcing the burning vomit out of her throat and back into her stomach.

It was a pity she had to look like this, she was far more intimidating in her normal state, but it would appear that Zalera hadn't completely supplanted it's host mind yet. Part of the mind still clung to it's animalistic instincts. It hung on to it's love for the things of the flesh, things of beauty.

These human creatures were sickening, ruled by their hormones and an endless quest for power; a power that would never rival the sort of power she and her kind wielded. Then again it was also that lust for power that made them so corruptible. That thought forced a charming and brilliantly white smile to slowly creep across her face. Even that smile made her almost vomit again. She swallowed it back down.

She longed for the days when she roamed around in this world in her demonic form, people trembled just at her presence. They would scream, but those screams would only grow in terror as she tore into her victims. After all she only appeared in a physical form when she was ready to kill. Now this repulsive covering made her an object of lust, it made her approachable by humans, their vile stench like an aura surrounding them.

She wanted them dead, that was the reason she was here, to exterminate them. At least this manifestation was capable of that. It was an efficient killing machine. It could wield swords in a way her regular presence couldn't. These blades made it so she wouldn't get the stench of their blood on her claws.

_Admit it, this form does have it's advantages_, part of her purred with a womanly seduction.

The form nodded it's head. _Yes it does have some perks, but…_

_You even enjoy it, don't you?_

_No I don't… _The demon paused as it noticed the womanly tone of the other voice in it's head.

"What's the matter."

The demon in all it's womanly trappings looked up into the mirror, her reflection smiling back. The demon tried to look past the outer façade, but all the demon saw was a women. It looked away from the mirror and at it's hands. It saw the claws and the scaly skin of it's true form, past the outer trappings, but when it looked back at it's self in the mirror a women still stood there despite the demon's attempt to see past it and look upon it's real demonic form. "You're not be real." The demon spoke to the mirror.

The reflection continued to smile as it stared back. Finally it's lips moved. "And yet your talking me. Strange, I've never heard of a demon suffering from mental illness."

The demon tried to figure out what the hell was going on. It hadn't told her lips to move to say the words that came out of them, but they had seemed to move of their own accord.

"That's because demon's don't have minds."

The demon tried to stop it, but the lips started moving again. "Oh that's right," the women waved her hand in mock extravagance. "demons are only spirit."

"You say 'only spirit' as if it were a small matter. As if spirit isn't powerful. The spirit is stronger then flesh or mind."

"Well I think I'm proving the spirit's failings right now." The female said defiantly.

"What are you?" The demon demanded from it's façade's reflection.

The women scoffed. "Come now, you can't believe that you could take a form and it would develop it's own personality."

"But this 'form' isn't real, it's…"

"Yes, yes," the women sounded as if she was getting annoyed and bored with the whole conversation. "it's not real, therefore I shouldn't exist, but here I am. I believe we have already covered this point."

"But this form _is _me!"

"Oh, now the form you despise so much _is _you."

"Well this isn't me, but…"

"It is you." The women finished the demon's thought for it. "Perhaps I'm your way of dealing with the fact that this is you, at least for now."

"It's absurd." The demon turned from the mirror.

"Is it?" the voice persisted despite the demon's refusal to acknowledge it's existence. The lips of the demon's cover continued to move despite it's attempts to make it stop. "You wondered about your master's inability to exterminate the last vestige of it's host mind, perhaps they found a way to cohabitate."

"It still clings to existence not because of my master's inability," the demon spat. "it just takes time to completely supplant it, but every mind does succumb as it was with Velius's and Hashmalum's hosts."

"Their hosts were weak." the women scoffed again.

"You think this Marquis is more resistant?"

"Perhaps." The women replied coolly.

"Enough!" The demon screamed scratching fiercely at it's form's head and pulled at it's hair. "This doesn't even matter. Host! I haven't taken anyone as a host. This body was created by me. It isn't real."

"It's as real as you are."

"I'm spirit and this is just an outer covering."

"This 'outer covering' is flesh in blood and along with it comes a mind, perhaps a mind you hadn't intended, but maybe it's here, and I am the result."

"But this flesh and blood isn't real, it's just a husk, an empty vessel for me. I gave it no brain."

"I never said brain."

"What?"

"I never said brain, I said mind."

"Yes, but…"

"No, they are not the same." The women answered the demon's unspoken objection.

"You might think the two are related or even the same, but they are not."

"Shut up!" The demon screamed as it turned and smashed the mirror.

The womanly outer cover shook it's head and clicked it's tongue in disgust. "Such a temper. Do you really think destroying the mirror would get rid of me?"

The demon slowly filled the entire form it habitated. It went to the hollow head where the brain should have been, but like before there was nothing there. It was empty.

_I already told I wouldn't be here. _The women spoke as if talking to a misguided child.

_Where are you? _The demon raged.

_You want to have it out? Fine here I am._

The demon watched as slowly something came into existence inside the head of the demon's vessel, it took the shape of the façade the demon was using. The demon assumed this thing was this other personality or perhaps only something to represent the personality. It really didn't matter all that mattered was that it was killed.

The demon's lunged at it, it's only concern was to smoother it, exterminate it. As soon as the demon was on top of this intruder it disappeared. The demon stumbled a few steps and turned around to see it standing only a few meters away. The demon lunged again, but as soon as it was within centimeters of the demon's claws it was gone again. It couldn't be caught. Even when the intruder was finally in the demon's clutches, it just seemed to turn to water and slipped through the demon's claws. The elusive dance continued until there was a knock at the door.

"Enter." The demon snarled at the door, being disturbed from it's pursuit inside the forms head.

As Lede stepped into the room all she saw was Celia, though she could look past the outer trapping to see the demon, much like herself, behind it all. "The boy is here."

"Very well." the demon made the façade say. "I'll be there in a moment."

Celia waited until she was alone again in the room, though not entirely alone. _Once the boy is dead, there will be no salvation for humanity. Humanity will be exterminated and then I can take off this facade and you will die along with it._

_Perhaps, _she said, _perhaps. _And then the thought and what it represented started to fade into the background and maybe even had disappeared…

_There,_ the demon thought triumphantly as it teleported to meet the boy at the gate of Limberry. _It was just a fluke I don't have to worry about it._

maybe.


End file.
